I love carbonara, it’s my favourite Italian dish. Unfortunately, most places load it with cream and it becomes much too heavy and sickly. This carbonara recipe brings it back to basics, it’s much healthier for you and tasty to boot! This is also quite an economical dish, as if it couldn’t get any better!

Add the pasta to the pot of boiling water. Place the garlic bread in the oven.

Fry the bacon with a drizzle of olive oil until starting to colour (about 5 minutes). Remove the bacon and drain on some kitchen paper.

Add the onions and garlic to the same frying pan. Add a little more olive oil if required. Fry over a medium to high heat until it starts to smell delicious.

Add a good dash of white wine and turn up the heat. Fry for 1 minute then add the bacon. Remove from the heat.

At this stage the pasta should be done. Drain it and add it to the frying pan. Mix well to coat the pasta. Place over a medium heat.

Add the eggs and most of the parmesan , stirring furiously. Add the cream now if you're using it.

Once the egg begins to set, remove from the heat. Add pepper to taste.

To serve

Serve the pasta with garlic bread and the remaining parmesan sprinkled over.

Serve with a glass of chilled white wine if the mood takes you!

What kind of wine?

Generally if you will just be using the wine for cooking it's ok to get a cheap and cheerful bottle. Of course if you prefer to get a more expensive bottle to accompany the dinner and use a dash from it for the cooking, that's OK too!

Not a big fan of white wine?

If you like to use white wine in your cooking, but you feel it's a waste as you wouldn't drink the rest of the bottle, simply freeze leftover wine in an ice-cube tray.